Wynyard woman concerned about Canada Post delivery

A Wynyard woman is raising concerns about the path her mail takes to get to her door.

Janice Belak says she sends a lot of letters through Canada Post during the holiday season. When one of her letters took more than a week to travel across town, she went to her local post office for answers.

“They were sending all of the local mail out somewhere else and then it would come back,” she said.

Belak’s mail, along with any other local mail, was being forwarded to Yorkton – and then to the Regina sorting centre. Finally, it was sent back to Wynyard to be scanned and sorted for delivery. It added up to a 330 kilometre trip, for a letter to be delivered to a house just blocks away.

“(It’s) creating more waste by wasting the fuel, the people these days are very concerned about emissions,” Belak said. “Still, the cost of our postage keeps going up.”

Canada Post confirmed to CTV News that most local mail must be shipped to a provincial sorting centre before it is sent to its final destination.

“This ensures that all mail, regardless of the address or destination, is handled and processed in the same way, and that all of our customers receive the same level of service,” the postal service said in a written statement.

The company also says mail is constantly entering and leaving small towns, and trucks that normally pick up and drop off local mail would be driving the longer routes anyways. Canada Post says taking the mail to sorting machines in the city is easier than hiring someone to do it by hand.

Belak, however, would like to see the mail stay a bit closer to home.

“I would like to see all the local mail stay in the local places,” she said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Canada Post says the system is used by large shipping companies across the country, even if the package takes a longer journey than originally intended.

Based on a report by CTV Regina's Josh Diaz

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